JACE-1(Lane Brothers, Book 3)(4)

This is the longest stretch I’ve had at home in years, and only because I refuse to leave until this mess with the family is cleared up. After that, it’ll be back to long, sleepless nights tracking the worst that humanity has to offer and rescuing hostages in countries most people don’t even know exist.

That is my life.

I have no room for long family holidays spent…what am I saying? Of course there’s room for all that shit, and even, dare I say it, a family of my own.

I just only recently came to understand this when my father collapsed from a heart attack and almost left us. Life is way too short to give up on the things that make us happy.

And, well, I just admitted to myself that part of the reason I cut and ran with Trace was that I was afraid of everything I felt for her. Imagine being this badass, shadow assassin who spends his life running around the globe taking out the worst of the worst and just not giving a fuck really.

Now imagine being that badass tough guy and meeting a girl who was so bright and perfect but for the gilded cage she seemed to exist in. Trace was always just as I wanted her to be, except she wasn’t allowing herself to live an actual life outside the shit her father allowed her to do.

So I pursued her and spent a long time trying to awaken the butterfly I saw struggling to emerge from the smothering cocoon she existed in, and Trace was wonderful once she started loosening up and living….

I’ve never been that happy, and I probably would have gotten over the fear I felt every second of the day, knowing that she was mine and that I was responsible for every aspect of her existence, if not for the call I got from my commanding officer to let me know that my time was up.

In my line of work, I could go for months from one mission to the next, never getting any downtime. Then they insist that we take a few weeks, even months to relax and unwind from the shit we’d see.

One of those rare times was when I spotted Tracy Mayfield standing across from me in a ballroom, surrounded by other women who were just as trapped and stuck as she was.

I saw something else in Trace, though, something crying out to the man in me. I won’t deny her beauty, either, because the woman is gorgeous.

What red-blooded male wouldn’t take a look at her and not be interested with all that silky brown hair and eyes the color of frosted blue jewels. She’s gorgeous and sexy and a million other things that my young heart couldn’t ignore.

Add to that equation the fact that she was pure and untouched and I felt like I hit the jackpot. And I did, I knew it then just as I know it now. Tracy Mayfield is my match in every way.

So, here I sit, in my car, watching her pace her living room, and all I can think about is the fact that I made a huge mistake letting her go instead of just ensconcing her in my family home where she would have been perfectly content to wait for me to come home.

She’s getting married.

Goddammit, how the hell am I supposed to convince myself to stay away from her after I get her to bring her father in on this if my inner beast keeps roaring at me?

The simple answer is that I can’t. If I’m honest here, I’d admit that it was probably too late for her or myself the minute she landed back in my neck of the woods.

I should have seen that this obsession I have has nothing to do with getting to her father and the intel he can provide, and that it’s all about wanting another shot at the woman I’ve never forgotten.

She’s getting married, asshole!

The thought is in my head, playing on a loop every few seconds, and it’s all I can do not to storm back into her house and tell her that I’d kill the man she tried to marry before I’d let that happen.

It was fine thinking that she was still free and available, that I could get another shot anytime I wanted—maybe when I finally pulled my head out of my ass.

But now, knowing that some other dick thinks he has a shot at what’s mine…no fucking way in hell.

“Bro, what’s up?” Jared asks, answering my call after one ring.

“She’s engaged, man. She’s getting married.”

Jared is my best friend, the one guy I can count on to pull me back from the edge and help me whenever the darkness that I carry around threatens to overwhelm me.

He and Miah are SEALs and into some black ops shit that makes them practically invisible to the world. I went the same route but chose a different unit in the beginning, believing that separating myself from the men who are more my brothers than cousins would release the last anchors I had to the life I didn’t want to live.

Two years in and I ended up there anyway after my unit took a direct hit from enemy fire and half of us made it out in body bags, or worse—injured but alive to relive the nightmare of that night.